Other Solutions

What's the correct way to deal with merge conflicts when merging upwards?

Problem

Let's say I make a change on 5.3, which includes a NEWS entry. The NEWS entry understandably conflicts when merging upwards to 5.4. How do I merge it correctly so that it doesn't cause problems for the next committer?

Furthermore, how do I deal with cases where I don't want a NEWS entry on master at all when merging there?